Islamic Studies in European Higher Education: Navigating Academic and Confessional Approaches

by Jørgen S. Nielsen (Editor), Stephen Jones (Editor)

Overview

Across Europe there are numerous examples of recent linkages between universities and Islamic seminaries. In Germany the federal ‘top-down’ experiment, now over ten years old, of establishing departments of Islamic theology in five universities has now recruited over 2000 students, many of whom will end up teaching confessional Islam RE in schools. In the UK, local partnerships have been developed at under- and postgraduate level between e.g. Warwick, Birmingham and Middlesex universities and Islamic seminaries representing a range of Islamic traditions. Similar experiences are being developed on a smaller scale in other countries. These developments, which have taken place against a backdrop of state pressure to ‘integrate’ Islam and address ‘radicalisation’, challenge university traditions of ‘scientific’ approaches to the study of Islam as well as the confessional expectations of faith-based Islamic theological training. By looking more closely at the developing experience in Germany and Britain and selected other countries this volume explores how the two approaches are finding ways of creative cooperation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399510868
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2025
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Jørgen S. Nielsen is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary European Islam, University of Birmingham, and Affiliate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Copenhagen. He studied Arabic and Middle East studies at SOAS, London, and did his PhD in Arab history at the American University of Beirut. Since 1978 he has researched Islam in Europe at Selly Oak Colleges and the University of Birmingham. He was director of the Danish Institute in Damascus 2005-7 and then spent six years as Danish National Research Foundation professor at the Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen University. He is the author of Muslims in Western Europe (Edinburgh, 1st ed. 1993, 4th edition with Jonas Otterbeck 2016) and is involved in editing several book series for Brill (Leiden) as well as the Journal of Muslims in Europe.

Stephen H. Jones is Lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham. He is a sociologist of religion whose main areas of expertise are in Islam and Muslims in the UK and religious and non-religious publics’ perceptions of science. He is author of Islam and the Liberal State (IB Tauris, 2021) and presently Principal Investigator of a research project, ‘Science and the Transmission of Islamic Knowledge in Britain’, which examines views of Islam and science among students and teachers in UK Islamic educational institutions.

Table of Contents

Notes on the Contributors Preface

1. Introduction: Incorporating Islam in European Higher Education Stephen H. Jones2. Islamic Studies in Universityand Seminary: Contest or Constructive Mutuality?Jørgen S. Nielsen3. (Re)habilitating the Insider: Negotiations of Epistemic Legitimacy in Islamic Theology and Newer Social Justice Mobilisation Birgitte Schepelern Johansen4. What do the Terms ‘Confessional’ and ‘Non-confessional’ Mean, and are they Helpful? Some Social Scientific Musings Sophie Gilliat-Ray5. A Decade of Islamic Theological Studies at German Universityies: Expectations, Outcomes and Future Perspectives Bekim Agai and Jan Felix Engelhardt6. Islamic Theology in a Muslim-minority Environment: Distinctions of Religion within a New Academic DisciplineLena Dreier7. The Taalib as a Bricoleur: Transitioning from Madrasahto Universityin Modern Britain Haroon Sidat8. Why would Muslims Study Theology to Obtain an Academic Qualification? Mohammad Mesbahi9. Navigating Alongside the Limits of Mutual Interdependence: Flemish Islamic Religious Education Naïma Lafrarchi10. The Need for Teaching against Islamophobia in a Culturally Homogeneous Context: The Case of Poland Anna Piela, Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska and Beata Abdallah-Krzepkowska11. Theology Faculties in Turkey: Between State, Religion and Politics Abdurrahman Hendek12. Closing Reflections: Going Beyond Secular–Religious and Confessional–Academic Dichotomies in European Islamic Studies Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor

Index

Editorial Reviews

This volume provides a timely challenge to the allegedly settled boundaries between "confessional" and "non-confessional" in Islamic Studies. They equally suggest various pathways of how Islamic theological perspectives can be successfully included in European higher education settings.

Oliver Scharbrodt

This excellent collection demonstrates the rich, yet often contested complementarity between academic and confessional approaches to Islam. Expert authors show repeatedly the vital role of the university in charting the history and the living faith of Islam that is at the heart of modern Europe’s search for a shared and productive identity.

Alison Scott-Baumann